Having blocked Elizabeth Warren, Republicans seek to do the same to Richard Cordray
The Obama administration is seeking a Senate vote in the near future to confirm Richard Cordray as the Director of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Since its creation, the bureau has been without a director as Republicans threatened to block the initial nominee to run the CFPB, Elizabeth Warren – a Havard Professor who helped to create the bureau.
Hoping to avoid a filibuster, the President nominated Richard Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general, to run the CFPB. However, this has failed to mollify the Republicans, who continue to threaten a filibuster.
Yesterday, Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner said at a press conference; “The longer we wait to confirm a director, the more we’re leaving millions of Americans who aren’t doing business with banks vulnerable to the kind of predation and abuse that caused so much damage in this crisis.”
He added at the press conference he called to draw attention to the issue, “Our strategy is to make the case as compelling as we can.”
Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee are seeking to weaken the CFPB – pure and simple. They are calling for the restructuring of the bureau to replace the single Director with a bipartisan five-person committee to extend political influence to it.
In addition, they seek to give banking regulators power to override the bureau’s decisions and force the bureau to seek funding from Congress every year. Next, if they have their way, the consumer bureau won’t be able to declare specific banking or credit card fees deceptive or abusive and ban them.
In other words, they want to strip the CFPB of the power to protect consumers and give the banking lobbyists the ability to defend their excesses. For this reason, the Republican stance is utterly reprehensible, pro-banking industry and anti-consumer.
Rep. Barney Frank, one of the authors of the Dodd-Frank Banking legislation that created the CFPB does not see this deadlock broken before 2012.
However, there is one way to break the deadlock and that is a recess appointment. Right now, the Democrats are raising the issue to paint the Republicans as being in the pockets of the banks, and rightly so.
The President however, should go further than simply scoring political points for the 2012 election and appoint Richard Cordray as Director during Congress’s next recess, whenever that may be. He has an obligation to protect the consumer from banking industry excesses, which – unless you’ve been living in a cave these last few years – undeniably exist.
Hopefully, he will do so. What do you think?
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